Journey to Wisdom

Biblical Insights From Ordinary Catholics

Welcome !

Greetings to all who love to wander along the paths of the Holy Scriptures! The purpose of this blog is to share some of the insights of ordinary Catholics who have begun to delve into the mysteries of the Sacred Scriptures. Hopefully you will find these reflections inspiring and insightful. We are faithful to the Church, but we are not theologians; we intend and trust that our individual reflections will remain within the inspired traditions of the Church. (If you note otherwise please let me know!) Discussion and comments are welcome, but always in charity and respect! Come and join us as we ponder the Sacred Scriptures, which will lead us on the path into His heart, which "God alone has traced" Job 28:23.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

The second
reading for this Sunday is from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans. Since Paul
wrote this letter to a Christian community that he neither founded nor as yet
had visited, it is unique among his writings. Even so, Paul’s Letter to the
Romans is widely acknowledged as the single most influential document in
Christian history because of its profound theology.

4 For whatever was
written previously was written for our instruction, that by endurance and by
the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

5 May the God of
endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in
keeping with Christ Jesus,

6 that with one accord
you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

7 Welcome one another,
then, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God.

8 For I say that Christ
became a minister of the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, to confirm the
promises to the patriarchs,

9 but so that the
Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:

“Therefore, I will praise you among
the Gentiles

and sing praises to your name.”

- Romans 15:4-9
N.A.B.

The
substance of all Holy Scripture might well be summed up in verses 5 and 6:

5 May the God of
endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in
keeping with Christ Jesus,

6 that with one accord
you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When a scribe
asked Jesus “Which commandment is the
first of all?” Jesus answered, “The
first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark
12:28-31 N.A.B.). Does being in keeping
with Christ Jesus include loving our neighbor as ourselves?

Has there
ever been a time when we have been in
harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus so that with one voice we could glorify God the
Father and the Lord Jesus? Biblical scholars and Church historians will answer:
probably not even from the beginning. Saint Paul’s First Letter to the
Corinthians and 1 John both express utter dismay at the disharmony that arose
in the early Church.

“It was St. Augustine’s argument, that
envy and hatred try to pierce our neighbor with a sword, when the blade cannot
reach him unless it first passes through our own body.”

Merton
went on to write:

“In so far as men are prepared to
prefer their own will to God’s will, they can be said to hate God: for of
course they cannot hate Him in Himself. But they hate Him in the Commandments
which they violate. But God is our life: God’s will is our food, our meat, our life’s
bread.”

One
of the elements of wisdom is recognizing that which is unchangeable in the face of a culture which insists that it is changeable. This will never change: true followers of Jesus
cannot be hate driven; it is God’s will that we should love our neighbor as
ourselves. This, too, will never change:
the sword of hatred aimed at our neighbor will damage our personal relationship
with our God. Saint Paul’s prayer/plea (v. 7) is that we welcome one another as
Christ welcomed us, for the glory of God.

Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and even atheists, however imperfect in their
faith or belief, who follow the Second
Greatest Commandment can accomplish what no president, congress, army, or
police force can: they can heal the rifts which are tearing our nation and
world apart.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Riddle me is a figure of speech that means: Go
ahead and try to explain that to me. It’s easy for us to shake our heads and
smile at the Sadducees’ foolishness at approaching Jesus, the Author of Life, with
a riddle, a brainteaser which they had used to stump the Pharisees for years.

In Judaism of
Jesus’ time, a childless widow would marry the brother of her late husband,
according to the custom known as levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5). The law
was designed to perpetuate the name of a man who died childless. The hapless
woman in the Sadducees’ made-up story suffered through seven childless
marriages and finally died. At the resurrection, whose wife would she be? The haughty
Sadducees had cooked up this riddle to show that resurrection would lead to
ridiculous results; it suited their purpose perfectly because they didn’t
believe in a resurrection whereas the Pharisees did. The riddle had never been satisfactorily
explained, that is, until the high and mighty Sadducees decided to challenge
Jesus with it.

27
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and
put this question to him,

28
saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife
but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his
brother.’

29
Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless.

30
Then the second

31
and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless.

32
Finally the woman also died.

33
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been
married to her.”

34
Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry;

35
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the
resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.

36
They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of
God because they are the ones who will rise.

37
That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob;

38
and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

39
Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.”

40
And they no longer dared to ask him anything.– Luke 20:27-40 N.A.B.

The
eavesdropping scribes might have been clapping and high-fiving when Jesus solved
the riddle by contrasting life in the current age with life in the age to come where marriage will not be a
part of the age to come because one
of them approached him and said, “Teacher, you have answered well.” Not only
had the arrogant Sadducees, along with their gloomy doctrine of no life after
death, been put in their place, but the scribes and Pharisees could look joyfully
forward to life after death.

At this
confrontation Jesus not only upheld the doctrine of resurrection, but he also
spoke of the age to come noting that
“only those who are deemed worthy” would
have life in the coming age. Since worthiness to enter the age to come cannot be grasped or assumed because it comes from
God’s judgement, and is therefore a grace, Jesus’ words bring endless joy to
those souls God calls to himself, to those who hear and obey. Are these words
of dread or discomfort to those souls who hear and fail to respond or
understand? If they aren’t, they should be. Do those graceless souls hate God?
Probably not, it’s His commandments that they dislike and choose to ignore.

What can we
learn from this Gospel story that has meaning in our modern world? Our earthly
transformation, the path to worthiness, begins when we start to model ourselves
after Jesus by following his example and his teachings. This is how He is
spiritually resurrected millions of times a day, even by the slightest act of
kindness performed in His name; it is how He continues to live through us. In following
Jesus’ teaching we announce His resurrection to the rest of the world.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

In yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus’ words fall with such portentous
weight that something inside me trembles a bit. Truly, the Christ-haunted areas
in our souls quake in fear as His reality penetrates through all the vanities
and reveals what you hold back from Him. Something greater is coming to bring true life, but only through death. Can you let go of weak hopes for something
greater?

In Ecclesiastes Solomon pondered how we “chase the wind “in search of something
greater. Riches, pleasure and even
wisdom only give the illusion that our life “under the sun” will go on. But even wise Solomon cannot see beyond
death. Solomon tells us to “cast our bread upon the waters”, since there
is no reason to hoard up our treasures.
Enjoy what you have until you are gone.
Death will absorb you into its darkness eventually. Vanity of Vanities! Yet Jesus tells us:

Butthere is something greater than Solomon
here.

Jonah goes into the belly of a fish -- which should have
been a tomb -- in order for God to bring an urgent warning to the notorious
city of Nineveh. They listened and cast
off their evil identity. They placed
their hope in a power that overcame a tomb.

And there is
something greater than Jonah here.

Do you feel the same stirring in your spirit that I do when
I read those words? There is awesomeness
to the reality of Jesus that is a quite unsettling. The closer we allow Him to draw to us the
more it illuminates what Solomon saw, but had no answer to: The futility of our mortal lives. The sign of Jonah, however frightening it must have been to the Ninevites, reveals a hope beyond this world and a mercy that seeks out those who are in need, and they could not
refuse it. They cast off their futile and
evil identity, they cast off their fear of letting go of vain hopes and they took hold of an eternal identity, and an eternal hope.

What are you afraid to cast
upon the waters?

Savior, you have delivered us and You continue to create us
in your image. I enter into your mighty
presence asking for the courage to continue yield my whole self you to you, whom
death cannot overcome.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Jesus’
instruction to forgive the contrite transgressor as many as “seven times in one
day” was raising forgiveness to a new height. So, the apostles’ natural
reaction was to ask for an increase in faith so that they could forgive as
Jesus had just instructed them.

3 Be on your guard! If
your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

4 And if he wrongs you
seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you
should forgive him.”

5 And the apostles said
to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

6 The Lord replied, “If
you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to (this) mulberry
tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

7 “Who among you would
say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the
field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?

8 Would he not rather say
to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me
while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’?

9 Is he grateful to that
servant because he did what was commanded?

10
So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say,
‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’” –
Luke 17:3-10 N.A.B.

However, their
demand for an increase in faith tells us that they didn’t understand that faith
is a gift from God – a free will gift – a grace. Then, what is faith, and how can
we obtain it? And once we have it, how can it grow? From the Catechism of the
Catholic Church we read:

Faith is an entirely free gift that
God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St.
Timothy: “Wage the good warfare, holding faith and good conscience. By
rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” To
live, grow, and persevere in the faith, it must be “working through charity,”
abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church. – C.C.C. 162, and:

Faith is a personal adherence of the whole
man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect
and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and
words. - C.C.C. 176

So then, is
it true faith when a life-long Catholic rationalizes, my grandparents were Catholic, my parents were Catholic, I was raised
Catholic; they were all good people. So I’m going to believe in God and follow
in their footsteps? Is the intellectual decision, alone, to believe in God,
albeit for a good reason enough? Probably not. Faith is more than an
intellectual belief in God. Still yet, it could be a good beginning, but
knowing that we should do something doesn’t mean that we will do it.
Intellectually, I accept that for health reasons I should walk at least thirty
minutes a day, but knowing it doesn’t mean that I will do it. Why not? Because
my will dominates my intellect; unless my intellect and will are in agreement I probably won’t regularly walk thirty
minutes a day. So, the intellectual decision to believe in God can be a good
beginning, but unless the will is in full agreement, faith remains shaky at
best. Then, in this matter of faith, at what point does our intellect and will
(the whole person) come to believe in God?

We will have
true, saving faith when we accept the gift
of faith when it is offered to us by God. When that happens will there be angels
playing harps, will there be thunder and lightning or will the earth tremble? No,
it could be a subtle as the urge to learn more about God. More often than not,
we won’t even remember the day - suddenly faith was just there. In our rear
view mirrors we might look back and recall a certain period in our lives when
we received it.

Then, is
faith alone enough to get to heaven? Not if that means simply clinging to an
intellectual belief in God, routinely attending Sunday services, and nothing
more. If it doesn’t lead us to a holy life of righteousness and mercy, it is
not a saving faith. The Letter of James tell us that faith without works is no
better than words without deeds, that faith can be neither seen nor verified
unless it shows itself in works, and even the demons have an intellectual
belief in God, but it does not lead to their salvation.

14
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have
works? Can that faith save him?

15
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,

16
and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do
not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?

17
So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18
Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your
faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my
works.

19
You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and
tremble.
– James 2:14-19 N.A.B.

What The
Letter of James doesn’t tell us is that works which stem from true faith nurture
and increase faith; without works faith is destined to wither and
die like an olive tree which is never watered; it will never bear fruit.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

A
bathrobe-clad sleep-eyed husband balefully watches his wife prepare to leave
for Sunday morning church services; finally he mutters, “Isn’t all of this
praying at church just a waste of time?” A defiant teen age boy whispers to his
younger sister, “Boy, have things changed around here since Dad got religion!”
A bright young woman, a college student majoring in microbiology, returns home
for the summer and announces, “I’m sorry Mom and Dad but science just doesn’t
support religion, so I’m not going to go to church with you this morning, and in
the future I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about God in front of me!”
And, so it goes!

Jesus was,
and still is, the supreme master of capturing an audience’s attention with
thought-provoking concepts. In this Gospel reading Jesus’ rhetorical statement
about hating family would have
astonished many of those in his audience; no doubt some of his listeners immediately
turned their backs on him and stomped away.

25
Great crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and addressed them,

26
“If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and
children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my
disciple.

27
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

28
Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate
the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?

29
Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the
work the onlookers should laugh at him

30
and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’

31
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether
with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon
him with twenty thousand troops?

32
But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for
peace terms.

33
In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:25-33 N.A.B.

In our
present day, as in Jesus’ day, when we answer the call to go to him we should be prepared for some negative consequences: estrangement
from family and friends, and yes, sometimes even persecution. Tragically, those
who suffer the disapproval or ridicule of family or friends are sometimes
persuaded to ignore God’s call to discipleship; some even lose their faith.

In our modern
chaotic world God has to come first, then family, then work, and lastly play.
True disciples put God before everything else in their lives, including family.
A wife reading this might respond with, “Wait a minute! Family has to come
first!” Really? What is the probability of a man who puts God first in his life
abandoning his family or becoming a spouse abuser? A husband reading this might
think, “The kids and I had better come first!” Really? What is the likelihood
of a wife who puts God first in her life being unfaithful to her husband? What
the odds of a marriage ending in divorce when both the husband and wife put
Jesus first in their lives? Can a true disciple neglect her children?

Putting God
first in our lives doesn’t mean spending all of our waking hours in prayer; it
can mean choosing to attend Sunday church services instead of going on a Sunday
morning fishing trip with friends; it can mean shopping at the mall on Saturday
instead of Sunday, it can mean being habitually polite instead of being customarily
rude, it can mean driving safely instead of cutting another car off in traffic;
it can mean spending fifteen minutes reading Scripture instead of watching
television, it can mean refusing to use profanity when everyone else in the
group does; the list is endless.

The urge to
worship God (discipleship) is a deep-rooted and powerful and supernatural force
which is ingrained in our souls. True disciples are at peace with God, themselves,
their family, and their neighbors. Those who refuse to accept God’s call are predictably
angry, hostile, and resentful because of the Godless existence they live. But
there is always hope because God never abandons his people – even when they
reject him!

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Imagine
waking up tomorrow morning in a foreign country, China for example. Most of us
would be forced to use lively gestures and animated facial expressions as a means
of communicating with the Chinese people. How useful would wide eyes and
flailing arms be in getting directions to the American Embassy? Also, spoken
Chinese is a tonal language with lots of upward and downward sounds often
described as very bouncy or lively, andto us it would sound like nonsensical gibberish. On the whole, this
would be an unpleasant experience!

Then, imagine
stumbling onto a group of English speaking Italians. What a break! Admittedly
their heavily accented English would be hard for us to understand, but at least
we could communicate with them.

In this Scripture reading Abraham and Sarah traveled to the Promised Land in faith and
became aliens in a foreign country, an uneasy situation to be in, and one that
we can relate to:

1 Faith is the
realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.

2 Because of it the
ancients were well attested.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed
when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an
inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.

9 By faith he sojourned
in the promised land as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and
Jacob, heirs of the same promise;

10
for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and
maker is God.

11
By faith he received power to generate, even though he was past the normal
age—and Sarah herself was sterile—for he thought that the one who had made the
promise was trustworthy.

12
So it was that there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead,
descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands
on the seashore.

13
All these died in faith. They did not receive what had been promised but saw it
and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens
on earth,

14
for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.

15
If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come, they would have
had opportunity to return.

16
But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

17
By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had
received the promises was ready to offer his only son,

19
He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received
Isaac back as a symbol.

What do Catholics
have in common with Abraham and Sarah? Like them, we are aliens in an
unfamiliar land. Christians, especially Catholics, should always have a disquieting
sense of discomfort, the uneasiness of being strangers in a foreign land
because, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah, this world is not our homeland;
we are strangers here.

Our Catholic
faith and community identity sets us apart from the Christian non-Catholic and
non-Christian society which surrounds us. Some of the words and ideas uttered
by that society should sound like Chinese to us, like nonsensical gibberish. On
the other side of the coin, our Christian non-Catholic brothers and sisters do
not understand some of our customs and beliefs, and when they speak out against
us our sense of alienation is usually amplified.

What are we
to think when some of our fellow Catholics and Christian non-Catholics endorse abortion,
euthanasia, religious discrimination, or immoral behavior? In this regard they
are like that group of English speaking Italians that we bumped into on our
imaginary visit to China: because of their accent we can make out some of their
words, but we clearly don’t speak the same language.

The author of
1 Peter wrote:

11
Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires
that wage war against the soul. – 1 Peter 2:11 N.A.B.

This author’s
message is clear: this earth is not our native soil. We are aliens; we don’t
belong here; we are journeying to our eternal home. It’s worth repeating over
and over: we are aliens on this earth; we don’t belong here; we are journeying
to our eternal home.

There was a
common belief among some of the Old Testament Hebrews that they should figuratively
chew on and absorb the Law of Moses daily, like food, so that it would become part
of their nature. Similarly, if we can chew on and absorb the concept that we
are aliens on this earth, such things as pride, materialism, greed, wrath, and
even fear of death will fall away from our eyes like scales, like the scales
which fell from St. Paul’s eyes, and we will be blessed with true vision.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Jesus
instructed his disciples to deliver this message to the people: “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.”
Did Jesus send seventy or seventy-two disciples to proclaim the arrival of the
Kingdom? Since the only four complete ancient manuscripts in existence are
evenly divided between seventy and seventy-two disciples, most bible editions put
the [-two] in brackets, as does the New American Bible. However a good argument
can be made for seventy disciples because that was the number of nations in the
world at the time. Following this line of thinking, the reign of the Kingdom of God on earth commenced with
the arrival of Jesus; this is the news that his disciples were to announce to
the entire world.

1 After this the Lord
appointed seventy [-two] others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every
town and place he intended to visit.

2 He said to them, “The
harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.

3 Go on your way; behold,
I am sending you like lambs among wolves.

4 Carry no money bag, no
sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.

5 Into whatever house you
enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’

6 If a peaceful person
lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.

7 Stay in the same house
and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment.
Do not move about from one house to another.

8 Whatever town you enter
and they welcome you, eat what is set before you,

9 cure the sick in it and
say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’

10
Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets
and say,

11
‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against
you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand.

12
I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.

17
The seventy [-two] returned rejoicing, and said, “Lord, even the demons are
subject to us because of your name.”

18
Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.

19
Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and
upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.

20
Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but
rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus also told
them, “Whatever town you enter and they
do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town
that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’”

In biblical
times, the Jews regarded Gentiles as idolaters or pagans, and when leaving Gentile
lands and cities, pious Jews often ceremoniously shook the dust from their feet
to show their separation from Gentile practices. In this Gospel reading Jesus ordered
his disciples to shake off the dust of any Jewish town whose occupants rejected
his message from their feet. Symbolically this act was meant to show the people
that they were making a wrong choice.

Was Jesus telling
his disciples to treat those Jews who rejected the news of the arrival of the
Kingdom of God through him as pagans? It would seem so. In other words: take it
or leave it. Was Jesus turning his back on disbelieving Jews? No. We know that God
never abandons his people. Still yet, this seems uncharacteristically harsh, not
something that Jesus would order his disciples to do, or at least not something
some of us think Jesus would order his disciples to do. Furthermore, how would disbelieving
Jews react to being treated as pagans by the disciples, fellow Jews? Wouldn’t
they be offended?

Merriam-Webster’s
Dictionary defines being politically correct as: agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use
language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people.
When was Jesus ever concerned with being politically
correct? Wasn’t announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of God inherently politically incorrect? One of the
greatest stumbling blocks of our time is our culture’s ongoing effort to make
Jesus politically correct – to put
words in His mouth - to make God more palatable.

In our role
as disciples of Jesus when should we ever be concerned about being politically correct? As we discuss Holy
Scripture and religion with our spouses, children, grand-children, friends, or
associates do we strive to make a politically
incorrect Jesus politically correct,
and in doing so water down our faith? If a friend says, “I really don’t like
what Jesus said in verse 12 about Sodom and Gomorrah.” Is my immediate reaction,
let me try to explain that verse to you in a way that what Jesus said won’t offend
you? I hope that I don’t actually do it, because if I do the Lord might well look
at me and shake the dust from his feet. As we gather at a restaurant table for
a meal and pray over our food before eating are we worried that our expression
of faith might offend other restaurant patrons? Do our spines tingle in anticipation
that someone might rush over to our table and bellow, “You people shouldn’t
pray in public places.”? How many Christians, in our modern world, avoid
reading the Old Testament because they are offended by some of God’s actions
and laws?

Finally, nearly
two-thousand years later what difference has the reign of God’s Kingdom on
earth inaugurated by Jesus made? In what way has it influenced the way I live my
life? Is it obvious to those around me that I am a disciple of the Lord? I hope
so. And I hope this makes me politically
incorrect because the very nature of being a follower of Jesus is to be politically incorrect – someone or some
group is sure to be offended. Maybe this reflection is politically incorrect; I hope so.